Daily Search Forum Recap: September 16, 2008

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Shares Information About its Human Search Evaluators
As we know, algorithms are very powerful in influencing the search results. However, we also know that Google has human evaluators -- thousands, in fact. In a recent blog post on the Official Google Blog, one of Google's engineering directors shed some light into the role of human evaluators. The relevant piece of information is here: Google makes use of evaluators in many countries and languages. These evaluators are carefully trained and are asked to

The Various Personalities at Sphinn
James Duthie at Online Marketing Banter is celebrating his one year anniversary at Sphinn. After spending a year on the social news network, he's been able to tell which kinds of Sphinners exist. There's the Sphinn hater (who ironically spends too much time on the site and calls for attention about how much they hate Sphinn and awfully resembles my relationship with Digg), there's the inane comment spammer, the flamer, the purist, the voting whore,

Optimize Your Google Videos with a Transcript
Have you created a video recently? Did it have a video transcript? The Google Video Help document actually suggests one; in fact, you should also code it appropriately like so: HH: Hours starting at 00 MM: Minutes starting at 00 SS: Seconds starting at 00 mmm: Milliseconds starting at 000 But is it helping the user? In response to the Cre8asite Forums post by Barry Welford, iamlost says that this time coding is beneficial for

96% of Search Marketers Have "Googled" Themselves
About a week ago, we polled you on if you Google yourself. And we received just about a hundred responses from the Search Marketing community. The results were what I expected. Only 4% said that they never have "Googled" themselves, while 96% said they do or have. Here is the break down: :: On Occasion said 61 respondents or 37% :: Often said 58 respondents or 35% :: Rarely said 32 respondents or 20% ::

Google Toolbar PageRank Update? Probably a Fluke
I cannot tell you how many times we see threads that are either reporting or questioning if there is a Google PageRank update. We try to document all "real" toolbar PageRank updates here, but often, very often, there are smaller updates or not updates at all, of the PageRank bar, reported in the forums. I figured I highlight one such thread, because Google's JohnMu adds some insight into why people might see a PageRank 0

Google's New Dynamic Quality Score Now Live
Google announced last night that the real time quality score algorithm would be live within days. Many are now reporting that they are seeing it live in their campaigns. I personally logged into a few of my accounts and noticed it was live for me also. Here is a screen shot: Last week, we complained that advertisers were sick of waiting and they want to know how they would be impacted by this. Back then,